Well I got back early yesterday morning after a red eye flight. It was a great trip. I got out fishing a few times but didn't manage to catch anything. Its tough to fish in Washington if you are not familiar with the regs. If you think MN has alot of regs and special restrictions you should get a hold of the Washington State Regs book and take a look. Every body of water seems to have its own regulations as to what you can keep and what baits you can use to catch them. So it was a little frustrating but I did fish some beautiful spots so it more then made up for it.

My white water rafting trip was awesome. After the first set of rapids I was begging for bigger waves, we did all big class three rapids so next time out I will be looking for class four. Here are a few pictures that the rafting company takes. I am in the guy in the light blue shirt and black swim trunks near the back of the raft.

The scenery...

Getting a little bumpy.

A little white water.

Small wall of water, they got bigger then this.

And the boat bender, our raft pretty much folded in half, you can kind of see me on the left side in front of the guide.

Pretty much everyone was having a great time. My wife and mother in law were actully on the other side of the raft as me. My wife loved every minute of it, my mother in law was nervous the entire time but still had fun. Its awesome to feel the power of the river but you really do feel pretty safe in the raft and if you get your feet in the right position it takes a lot to get you out of the boat.

Here is another picutre I meant to post with the group. You can see the entire group in the boat a little better. 3 of the guys, (front left, back right and the second one from the front on the right) were always ducking into the raft to avoid being hit by waves. Me and the guy in the blue long sleeve shirt had to do about 95% of the paddling on the left side of the boat beucase the other 2 kept trying to avoid getting hit.

Nofish--I rafted the New River in West Virginia about 10 years ago, we went out of a camp in a town called Hico. My friends, like you, enjoyed it so much they went back a few times. I had moved to Fla. by then and it was too tough to orgainze schedules, but I would go again if I had the time.

If you do a little searching on the 'net I think you will find out that in West Va. there were better times to go, as I remember the Army Corps of Engineers releases water through a dam on the river for about three weeks in the fall and it creates class V and VI rapids that are supposed to be among the, how shall I say, most challenging (pant-soiling?) in the country. If you are intrested that might be a place to check out. As for the fishing, well, that's why it called fishing and not catching . . .